Weeding Out the Junk

When I first saw that there was a technical writing class offered in the English department, I immediately knew I wanted to take it for a very specific reason. I assumed that the class would help me write things in a way that connects logically, because I have always struggled with trying to stroke my writing ego in my journalistic pieces. I have found that, in what I consider my best ideas, impressive concepts do not translate into good writing if you lack the concrete skill of demonstration. Where the ifixit project has helped me the most is seeing writing from its most naked and skeletal. Unbeknownst to many, that is a beautiful thing as I can get self-involved in my features, when the focus should really be on the person or thing getting the spotlight—then demonstrating that narrative effectively.

I was honestly surprised with how dumb I was in hindsight, not understanding the obvious notion that writing, before anything, is functional. Even if it is an entertainment piece, it must be active, simply read and engaging. When I receive feedback from the project, it shows me how important every detail in writing is as my team will be fully confident nothing could be wrong, but, alas, there always is something wrong. That definitely comes as a challenge to improve my future writing for not only this class and project, but for my own writing as well: I hope I haven't been misleading readers all along. My biggest struggle with technical writing is abundantly clear. I assume that readers will subconsciously smooth over any thing that may come off as confusing. My brain is not the readers, so now that I see the weight that even the most arbitrary words can carry, it gives me incentive to pay attention to detail. Doing that will not only help my technical writing, but will lend itself to crafting a creative sentence—wait for it—technically. At this point, I am still curious on how well the line between technical writing and creative writing can be blurred or merged. I see potential in my strides, but there is still a lot of time to enhance my repertoire.